Window on Eurasia

Putin Regime Again Positioning Itself as ‘Lesser Evil’

 

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 30, 2006 – Moscow media efforts to play up the rise of Russian fascism are designed to make a third term for President Vladimir Putin appear to be “the lesser evil,” according to a leading Russian
nationalist commentator in an article published in a Siberian newspaper
today.

Writing in “Politicheskiy Irkutsk,” Stanislav Belkovskiy argues
that his conclusion on this score, one that other commentators have
suggested in the recent past, has been reinforced by the recent incident in
Moscow’s Cherkizov market in which at least ten people died
[http://babr.ru/index.php?pt=news&event=v1&IDE=323150].

That incident and even more the way the Moscow media have played it are
“very strange,” he suggests. If it reflected as the media claims a
real upsurge in Russian fascism, why did these killings not provoke the
kind of outburst of popular anger against non-Russians that such
coverage would seem to make logical?

Indeed, he continues, all this disturbingly resembles the blowing up of
Moscow apartment buildings in 1999. Putin and the Russian media blamed
these tragedies on the Chechens, a view many experts have discounted
but one the population largely accepted and decided was a good reason to
vote for Putin in the elections that followed.

But again, if there were a genuine upsurge in xenophobia and fascist
attitudes in the Russian Federation as coverage of those events and the
Cherkizov explosions would seem to require, why were there no pogroms
then or now – as there certainly would have been in other post-Soviet
countries if similar things had happened?

The reason, Belkovskiy insists is that “’Russian fascism’” now
like the Chechen threat earlier is part of a carefully planned campaign
by the Kremlin to portray “’Russian fascism’” as “’the
greater evil’ in comparison with which the Putin regime, whatever its
shortcomings, is ‘a lesser evil’ -- in the first instance in the
eyes of the West.”

In making these charges, which many will dismiss or view as overblown,
Belkovskiy is careful to specify just who he is in ethnic terms: “a
Jew on his mother’s side and a Pole on his father’s.” But he
insists that he considers himself a Russian, even though he has
experienced negative attitudes because of his background.

“But,” he adds, “while living in other countries – for example
in Latvia or in Ukraine,” Belkovskiy adds, he “can say that there
such manifestations [of ethnic hostility and xenophobia] are
immeasurably greater. Especially with regard to anti-Semitism. And not
only in day to day life but among the political elites.”

According to Belkovskiy, “the Russian resident generally does not
have any sharply negative feelings toward representatives of other
nationalities because Russian consciusness is imperial rather than
nationalistic.” That is, his attitudes are intended to be politically
inclusive rather than ethnically exclusive.

And overwhelmingly Russians today, Belkovskiy insists, arevirtually
certain to be angered by any suggestion that they are bearers of
“’Russian Fascism’,” an ideology that not only demeans them in
their own minds but can awaken the darkest sides of the human
soul…”

“As is well known,” Belkovskiy continues, “Vladimit Putin loves
to use various tragic events in order to tell {Russians and the world]
that it is necessary to do away with the elections of governors or take some
other step.” The Cherkizov events appear to be just another example
of this, the Moscow writer insists.

And he ends his article with the following claim: “’Russian
fascism’ is a propaganda phantom. Xenophobia is definitely to be
found among the Russian people, but it is not at a critical level,” at
least not at the present time. And at the very least it is not “the basic
problem of Russia.”

Instead, Belkovskiy insists, “the basic problem [that many in both
the Russian Federation and the West are ignoring] is the absence of
nationally and socially responsible elites. Elites who are capable of
formulating for the entire Russian people goals and models for the
future.”

Until such elites emerge, the use of the Soviet-era ploy of “the
lesser evil” as opposed to “the greater one” seems certain to
remain a prominent feature on the political landscape of the Russian
Federation – at least during the runups to elections if at no other
time.

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